Chavez Jr. Wins Middleweight Championship at LinesMaker

LOS ANGELES —Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. defeated Sebas­t­ian Zbik by major­ity deci­sion on Sat­ur­day night to win the mid­dleweight title, tak­ing a major step toward estab­lish­ing his own legacy while his famous father looked on.

Two judges scored the fight for Chavez, 115–113 and 116–112, while the third at it a draw.

“My father came to the Wild Card and told me, ‘This is where you win the fight, not down the street at Sta­ples Cen­ter,“‘ Chavez said of the gym of his trainer, Fred­die Roach, who also works with Manny Pac­quiao. “Work hard, lis­ten to Fred­die Roach. This is how you win titles.”

Chavez’s father won his first title in the same town in 1984, when he stopped Mario Mar­tinez to win the WBC junior light­weight title at the Olympic Auditorium.

His 25-year-old son was behind early against Zbik (30–1), who was the quicker fighter and landed more punches early. But Chavez kept com­ing for­ward, coun­ter­ing with hard body shots that seemed to slow his Ger­man opponent down.

The fight­ers, appar­ently believ­ing the fight could go either way, came out fir­ing in the final round. Chavez seemed to out­work his foe to punc­tu­ate a solid performance.

“Zbik had a lot of heart,” Roach said. “He came to win, he fought hard. But Junior was in the best con­di­tion ever. He sim­ply out­lasted Zbik.”

Zbik believed he was ahead on the cards going into the final round.

“I won the first five or six rounds,” he said. “I thought I was far ahead. But I got hit with those body shots and began to get tired. … My cor­ner told me I had to win the final round and I thought I did. I think the judges gave Chavez all the close rounds.”